


Adrift

by Epervier



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Space, Angst with a Happy Ending, Established Relationship, Extended Metaphors, Flashbacks, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Mental Health Issues, YOI Space Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-07
Updated: 2018-03-07
Packaged: 2019-03-28 06:59:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13898757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Epervier/pseuds/Epervier
Summary: Sometimes, Victor thinks it’s impossible to love more. That if this burning in his chest keeps on spreading, he’s going to lose his breath and disintegrate into a million particles.Sometimes - and it terrifies him - he holds onto this thought, andyearns.





	Adrift

**Author's Note:**

> *Shows up late to this event with starbucks* Anyway this was inspired by YOI Space Week's prompt:
> 
> _(Day 1) nebulae - vague, conceptual, dreamlike. full of potential and what might be, swirling with the hopes and dreams of stars yet to be born._
> 
> All my love to thishasbeencary for beta-ing this for me. You're the best, dear :)

On their way to the dorms, they pass curious students who giggle and point at the sight the pair of them must make, one blindfolded and the other holding onto him. Victor treats them to a wink, holding a digit to his lips in universal code for ‘ _Why yes, this beautiful young man who happens to be my boyfriend is in for a surprise, how kind of you to notice, now hush, lest you spoil it!_ ’ (Well, not in so many words, but it’s the thought that counts, and Victor, oh, Victor has thoughts about tonight. He has _plans_ for tonight.)

 

“What was that?” Yuuri asks. Of course he does. If there’s one thing one must understand about Yuuri, surely it’s this: knowledge is a fundamental need. Except there’s more to him than that. Yuuri is a myriad of contradictions and delectable secrets, not an enigma, but a maze for Victor to unravel, to navigate from beauty spot to beauty spot, when they’re breathing the same air under the comforter and his fingertips map out a milky skin’s cartography.

 

 Sometimes, Victor thinks it’s impossible to love _more_. That if this burning in his chest keeps on spreading, he’s going to lose his breath and disintegrate into a million particles.

 

 Sometimes - and it terrifies him - he holds onto this thought, and _yearns_.

 

 He adjusts the blindfold over Yuuri’s eyes, makes sure it stays put. It’s the infamous tie Victor hates so much, but even it is almost pleasant to look at, like this, serving a purpose.

 

 And what a noble purpose it serves.

 

 “Nothing. Students,” Victor says now, squeezing his hand. He’s learnt the hard way that nothing is ever nothing, with Yuuri. Everything is something, and in the darkness, that something is a ghost.

 

 It’s up to Victor to pave lightness over the lane of his shadows.

 

 “They were laughing at us.”

 

 “They were jealous. Of me,” Victor replies easily. “For having such a cute boy all to myself.”

 

“Vitya…”

 

“Yuuuri! You promised. Trust me!”

 

Yuuri bites his lips, licks that red little piece of abused skin, thinking. Victor doesn’t need to see his eyes to guess that he’s holding back whatever he wants to say.

 

 He doesn’t want Yuuri to have to hold back anything. Ever.

 

 And then, finally, with such great care, Yuuri picks a golden thread:

 

“Maybe they were jealous of your hair.”

 

Victor whizzes out a huff of a laugh, startled.

 

_Damn it_ , he thinks, desperately delighted. _I am so, so gay_.

 

Victor’s conditioner gains power. His hair shines bright, his crops are watered, his skin is cleared. He’s going to sail on this current Yuuri steered them in. He reasserts his hold on Yuuri’s hands, steps into the hollows of his body, barely a second, breathes in, out.  Yuuri’s scent is familiar and perfect, Victor’s rightful place in the universe.

 

 And Victor is going to leave its shores.

 

“Just a little bit further. Come on, let’s take the elevator!” He infuses more lightness in his voice than he feels. It works; Yuuri frowns.

 

“We can’t do that!”

 

“Yes, we can. Everyone always does!”

 

“They shouldn’t. Vitya, it’s for people with reduced mobility, what if someone really needs the elevator while we’re using it?”

 

“It’s only for this once. It’s _fine_ , Yuuri, really, it is. Besides, I’m not carrying you up all these stairs, my little piggy!”

 

Victor would pay good money to see Okukawa’s face if he even tried. Her _primo ballerino_ , assigned to bed rest during the end-of-year’s performance, all because Victor let him break his neck? Victor would be better off signing his own death warrant.

 

“You wouldn’t let me fall,” Yuuri protests. They take the elevator anyway.

 

“Almost there.” Suddenly, struck with something like hesitation, Victor brings them to a stop in the middle of the corridor. Lost as he’d been in his planning and set-up, it hadn’t crossed his mind that Yuuri might not like his surprise.

 

What if Yuuri doesn’t like his surprise? Victor couldn’t take it. He’d die, he’s sure of it.

 

“Vitya?”

 

“Yuuri, I think I changed my mind.”

 

“…Uh?”

 

 

So, it happens like this:

 

They step over the threshold, together - hand in hand, as though letting go will set them apart of each other’s orbit. Yuuri’s eyes are wide open, free to take in -

 

 

 

∞

_“My room. You used my room. Phichit?”_

_"...helped."_

 ∞

 

 

 

\- the celestial canopy.

 

Stars, a colony of them, dots, and planets emerging from the ceiling and spilling in waves over the walls. Three hundred forty two glow-in-the-dark stickers x2, most of them not bigger than a coin, painstakingly applied and offered maximum luminosity in record time, now ablaze.

 

At the center of it all, Yuuri, weaving through the darkness, benevolent fairy lights casting chiaroscuro upon the planes of his awed features.

 

 

 

∞

_He’d taken his shoes off before coming in._

_Such a ‘Yuuri’ thing to do._

∞

 

 

 

“It’s not much. Certainly not the real thing,” Victor says, apologetic. “But I thought you’d appreciate some stargazing of our own.”

 

 

 

∞

_Privately, in a corner of his mind, Yuuri sometimes thought he wasn’t meant for all the great things in his life._

  _Food, location, bedrolls, they’d planned the whole thing. Victor knew someone who knew someone who had a friend who was willing to turn a blind eye on two intruders stargazing on his property, as long as they were gone by the morning. They’d need a car, had decided on hitching a ride, because where was the fun in making something magical if you didn’t have to work for it?_

  _It was almost enough to make up for all the crying on a deserted bathroom floor, for the failing grades and crushed hopes of a dime a dozen astrophysics major, and for the churning in his gut. Spring break was upon them, maybe they could mend up the relationship that was slipping through their fingers._

_It was fine._

_And then Yuuri’s dog died on the eve of a meteor shower._

∞

 

 

 

“This is as real as it gets, Vitya.”

 

 

 

∞

_Blindfolded._

_Then not._

∞

 

 

 

In the end, there are no great fireworks. The world righting itself on its axis feels nothing like Victor imagined; it’s a footprint in the snow, a single piano note in the void.

 

It’s a sigh of defeat and the pinched bridge of a nose. “Come here?” Yuuri asks.

 

Victor leaves his spot next to the door.

 

They share a kiss. Short, butterfly, then deep. It’s only a prelude.

 

Victor finds that he doesn’t mind one bit.

 

They’re better at hugging. Always have been, from the very beginning. Victor’s arms wrap naturally around his boyfriend’s waist, Yuuri hums, says, “You’re being awfully clingy today. Anything I should know?” even as he reciprocates. And reciprocating - ?

 

Yuuri does so in spades.

 

It’s easier, then, to breathe. Victor’s eyes are a little wet.

 

“Silly Vitya.” Victor’s lover’s hand against his temple is replaced with lips. “You worried.”

 

Victor huffs. “Well, you acted worryingly!”

 

He almost regrets his outburst, when that warmth leaves him. Yuuri is frowning.

 

“Vitya…” he says. Something crystallizes in his features. Suddenly, he’s holding Victor at arm’s length.

 

“Thank you for everything you’ve done!” Yuuri bows, deep at the waist. He does so with enough resolve that it leaves Victor flabbergasted, gaping like a fish. And then, he surprises him again. “Please keep taking care of me!”

 

“… _Yuuri_ ,” Victor breathes.

 

“Err, if that’s alright?”

 

“If it’s alright…? Yuuri…” _Of course_. “Yuuri. Only for as long as you’ll have me.”

 

“A little while longer, then.”

 

“A little while longer,” Victor agrees, and smiles.

 

It hurts.

 

 

 

∞

_“My dad has inherited an inn from an old relative. Mom thinks we’ll manage. They’re just waiting for me to graduate, and then…”_

_“So you’re going, then. With them.”_

_“I-it’s just, they’re going to need all the help they can get…”_

_“That’s good! So exciting!”_

_“There’s something else.”_

_“Yeah?”_

_“It’s…it’s kind of in Japan.”_

∞

 

 

 

They are infinite.

 

“ _Boötes, Serpens,_ oh, here’s _Corona Borealis_ …”

 

“Making it look realistic gave us _a lot_ of trouble,” Victor stage-whispers.“We thought we wouldn’t make it in time.”

 

The stickers’ phosphorescence has dimmed. Victor and Yuuri lay tangled in a mess of sheets, face upturned, illuminated in the cradle of the fairy lights’ glow, fingers interlaced.

 

“I’m gonna miss you,” Yuuri’s tongue confesses to his ear, sometime when he’s half asleep.

 

“I know,” Victor murmurs. “I’m gonna miss me, too, without you.”

 

They let a hush fall over them, and drift.

 

“Think we’re gonna be okay?”

 

“I don’t know.”

 

 

The end is only the beginning. 

 

 

“Hey, Vitya.”

 

“Hm?”

 

“Come visit me in Japan?”

 

**Author's Note:**

> No Phichit were harmed in the making of this fic. He probably had a pyjama party somewhere while this was taking place, like the best bro he is. They owe him a gift basket or something.
> 
> Roses are red  
> Comments are love  
> So are kudos  
> And I suck at poems
> 
> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> SERIOUSLY THO THANKS FOR THE READ


End file.
